---
title: Toothpaste
genre: prose

id: toothpaste
toc: "Toothpaste"

project:
    title: "Buildings out of air: Paul in the Woods"
    class: paul
    order: 36
    next:
    - title: Father
      link: father
    - title: Treatise
      link: treatise
    prev:
    - title: Early
      link: early
    - title: Toilet
      link: toilet
...

He couldn't [find a shirt][] to go to work in.
They all had stains on them somewhere.
He pulled out a vest to put on over the stains but somehow all of them were still visible.
Most of them were unidentifiable but one he thought could have come from [that peach][] he ate two weeks before.
Another looked like toothpaste but he was paranoid it was something else.

When he took the bus into work he couldn't relax.
He was paranoid everyone was staring at his stain and kept looking out the corners of his eyes to make sure they weren't.
They didn't seem to be but they could also be looking away just as he looked at them.
"The [Observation][] Paradox" he muttered to himself.

Jill was the only one to notice the stain at work.
She came around to his cubicle during a break because he dared not show his stain in the break room.
"You have a stain on your shoulder" she said "it looks like toothpaste."
"Do I" he feigned ignorance but [went red][] at the same time "I didn't see that there this morning."
"How do you get toothpaste on your shoulder?"
"I don't know skills I guess" he said and she grinned.
"You know vinegar will take that out" she said "although I think I like it.
You should start a museum of shirt stains!"
"I don't have that many shirts with stains" he said frowning.
"Yes you do" she said.

[find a shirt]: no-nothing.html
[that peach]: http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html
[Observation]: problems.html
[went red]: statements-frag.html